HS Rentals Trail Buggies

[Stinger-pr]

Hi guys!

Can anyone tell me about your experience with renting a trail buggy with HS Rentals in Aruba? We have one booked for next month but wanted some feedback, if any, from those who have done this. They told us the road to the natural pool is very deteriorated and we won't be able to drive the buggy up there, but it wasn't really a deal breaker for us. We're just doing a loop of the island, stopping at the most places we can and finishing at a beach to relax and snorkel for a bit. We're in Aruba for 12 hours so I guess we'll have enough time. TIA!!

[Sand&Sea]

We rented an offroad UTV with another company last year (we stayed on the island for a week) and downloaded the Arubiana app on our phone and did our own self guided tour of the island.  It was an amazing offroad experience and we were able to go to the Natural Pool, the lighthouse, caves, rocks and other really beautiful places.  The best day of our trip and a great excursion.  

[mitsugirly]

On 2/1/2020 at 4:09 PM, Stinger-pr said:

Hi guys!

Can anyone tell me about your experience with renting a trail buggy with HS Rentals in Aruba? We have one booked for next month but wanted some feedback, if any, from those who have done this. They told us the road to the natural pool is very deteriorated and we won't be able to drive the buggy up there, but it wasn't really a deal breaker for us. We're just doing a loop of the island, stopping at the most places we can and finishing at a beach to relax and snorkel for a bit. We're in Aruba for 12 hours so I guess we'll have enough time. TIA!!

 

 

Hi Stinger. While we haven't rented a buggy (our Aruba friend took us to that section of the island in her truck) we do land vacations here and have been just about everywhere.

 

Check my website for Aruba for a lot of things to see and do in your day in Aruba. Let me know if you have any questions. A great thing to download is the mapsme on your phone. You don't need internet service to use it and you can pre-mark any destinations before you go so that when you get there you'll know where everything is and just follow the maps.

 

 

ARUBA LINK

[Stinger-pr]

1 hour ago, mitsugirly said:

 

 

Hi Stinger. While we haven't rented a buggy (our Aruba friend took us to that section of the island in her truck) we do land vacations here and have been just about everywhere.

 

Check my website for Aruba for a lot of things to see and do in your day in Aruba. Let me know if you have any questions. A great thing to download is the mapsme on your phone. You don't need internet service to use it and you can pre-mark any destinations before you go so that when you get there you'll know where everything is and just follow the maps.

 

 

ARUBA LINK

Oh Young Grasshopper... I've already gone up and down your list, made quite a few notes and marked a bunch of places on Google Maps in order to later download the map to use it offline on the island.So thank you for your write-ups. As usual, your recommendations have been useful for us.

 

We'll have a long 12 hour stop in Aruba so we'll have ample time. I'm in the process of figuring out a route in order to maximize time and check all the boxes there. The only hiccup we have encountered with the buggies is that we were informed outright that we could not take them on the road leading to the natural pool due to "deteriorates conditions" of the dirt road. An ATV/UTV was a bit out of our budget so we opted for the buggy, So, we'll see how that goes!

[jean87510]

On 2/1/2020 at 4:09 PM, Stinger-pr said:

Hi guys!

Can anyone tell me about your experience with renting a trail buggy with HS Rentals in Aruba? We have one booked for next month but wanted some feedback, if any, from those who have done this. They told us the road to the natural pool is very deteriorated and we won't be able to drive the buggy up there, but it wasn't really a deal breaker for us. We're just doing a loop of the island, stopping at the most places we can and finishing at a beach to relax and snorkel for a bit. We're in Aruba for 12 hours so I guess we'll have enough time. TIA!!

I just did this back in January. Here's my review:

 

Please believe me it was horrible driving out there to the natursl pool and a waste of time. We had fun but in retrospect, I should have stuck with a car rental because I could hsve gone faster and farther.

 

Edited February 11, 2020 by jean87510

[Hatteras51]

1 hour ago, jean87510 said:

I just did this back in January. Here's my review:

 

Please believe me it was horrible driving out there to the natursl pool and a waste of time. We had fun but in retrospect, I should have stuck with a car rental because I could hsve gone faster and farther.

 

Thanks for including your review.  I think that the natural pool is so overrated.  Sometimes it is closed, and people drive all the way out there for nothing.

[jean87510]

Yep. Ill never do it again. There's so much to see in Aruba. The snorkeling beach we were at was fabulous snorkeling. I also liked phillips garden for the animals. We've been there a few times and still haven't been everywhere.

[Stinger-pr]

On 2/11/2020 at 6:31 PM, jean87510 said:

I just did this back in January. Here's my review:

 

Please believe me it was horrible driving out there to the natursl pool and a waste of time. We had fun but in retrospect, I should have stuck with a car rental because I could hsve gone faster and farther.

 

Thank you for including your review here. While we were ready to skip going to the natural pool due to being warned by the crew at HS Rentals about the buggy not being able to make it due to road conditions, I looked at some videos for those type of buggies online and noticed the low speed the reached and the apparently horrible ride they have. We didn't want to end up with screwed up backs on our first stop of the cruise. We ended up going a bit more expensive and booked and UTV. We're still undecided on starting the trek from north to south ending with a snorkel swim at Mangel Halto or doing it south to north and just relax for a while at Eagle Beach.

 

Can you give any pointers for snorkeling at Mangel Halto?

[jean87510]

When you get to beach, there's a line of rocks out on the water. Go to the right of the rock jetty then follow sand bar and swim to the left. You will have an easy entrance to the reef. Make sure you have snorkel socks on or enter with fins on as it is a bit rocky. 

Go early in am. Places to hang your stuff but it does get a little crowded. 

Good job renting an atv. And avoid natural pool. The gold mines has a much easier natural pool thats 10x better and you can even drive a rental car there. I will never return to that tourist trap. Its a disgrace that road.

[Stinger-pr]

On 2/15/2020 at 1:21 AM, jean87510 said:

When you get to beach, there's a line of rocks out on the water. Go to the right of the rock jetty then follow sand bar and swim to the left. You will have an easy entrance to the reef. Make sure you have snorkel socks on or enter with fins on as it is a bit rocky. 

Go early in am. Places to hang your stuff but it does get a little crowded. 

Good job renting an atv. And avoid natural pool. The gold mines has a much easier natural pool thats 10x better and you can even drive a rental car there. I will never return to that tourist trap. Its a disgrace that road.

Thanks for the advice. I might skip the natural pool anyway. I've read that it's always a bit crowded no matter what time you visit and we have a natural pool here in Puerto Rico as well so it's not like it's a "must-see before I die" thing for us.

 

Is there any undertow or currents I should be weary about at Mangel Halto?

[jean87510]

27 minutes ago, Stinger-pr said:

Thanks for the advice. I might skip the natural pool anyway. I've read that it's always a bit crowded no matter what time you visit and we have a natural pool here in Puerto Rico as well so it's not like it's a "must-see before I die" thing for us.

 

Is there any undertow or currents I should be weary about at Mangel Halto?

not really a riptide when we were there.  Current wasn't that bad as we have fins.  Also, invest in snorkel socks especially if snorkeling in Bonaire or this place.  So much easier getting in and out!!  Also try Boca Catalina as another alternative for snorkeling off the beach.  We had a cooler bag that we put ice in from the ship and put drinks in there for the day from a convenience store.  We used that bag on our cruise last month for 4 days in Culebra and 8 port stops off of the summit!  It finally broke at our last stop in Bonaire but it did its job.